A/N: Hey! Sorry this is up so late on a Friday...it was my brother's birthday today so I'm just now getting time to post. BUT it's up now, so no worries! (Right?)

Last time: Max and Iggy came back and told what they saw of Anne and the Head Hunter, Nudge and Gazzy staked out the Itex and saw Roland ter Borcht, and the flock decides to instigate Plan Z...dun dun dun...

Here's the chapter!


"This is going to be awesome!" Gazzy cackled too close to my ear, making me wince.

Me, I was not so convinced. Plan that was going to get us killed would be more accurate in my opinion. But of course, in Gazzy's mind, that pretty much translated as awesome.

"Remember," Fang told him. "Don't let anyone see you." Gazzy and Iggy looked at each other, not bothering to hide their smiles. My nervousness peaked another twenty notches.

Wait. I'll back up. Last time I left off with me wondering what in the world Plan Z was, right? Right. Well, I found out. And now I wish that I hadn't.

So here it is. Plan Z is, first and foremost, the biggest distraction known to bird kid kind. It's all based on the idea that it is basically impossible not to watch an explosion. So, Gazzy and Iggy are going to basically destroy around a block of Beijing. Their theory is that since no one can look away from an explosion, everyone in the Itex building will be glued to the windows, watching the street get blown up, while we can sneak in relatively undetected.

Sound stupid to you? Yeah. It did to me, too. Especially since the rest of the flock and I were going to be waiting like fish ready to be shot in a barrel while Gazzy and Iggy did what they did best – blow things up. I just hoped that we weren't the ones about to get blown up by Itex.

The rest of the flock was oblivious to my sudden jump into Christianity. Apparently they had implemented this plan before, to great results. They kept mum on exactly why/on what they had used this plan, so – naturally – I was dying to know. But of course, did I get to know? No. The only good thing about this plan was that it was giving me something to do, somewhere to channel all of this pent up energy that I had. It was lucky for the flock that they had decided to do this, because otherwise there would have been a big old Max explosion just waiting to happen.

We were going to be using the fire escapes to get into the building, since even with their amazing 'Plan Z', it would be a little too obvious just waltzing in the only door that they had in the building. (Which, I might add, seems to be a bit of a design flaw. I mean, isn't it a little dangerous to only have one door out? What happens if there's a fire? All the scientists try to cram themselves out of the one door?) So while Iggy and Gazzy were setting off the bombs, we would sneak up the fire escapes, climb into the air vents, and find the meeting to listen in. Again with the assuming we could get into the air vents. Reason number 5972 that I did not like this plan.

I'm going to stop ranting about the plan and just get on with the story.

"Alright," Fang was saying. "Meet us back at the rendezvous point in an hour. Go." Gazzy and Ig stole out of the alleyway that we were in and blended right into the crowd. The last thing that I saw of them were their twin grins, vanishing around the corner.

"And now we wait," sighed Nudge.

Fang nodded and leaned against the wall of the Itex building. It was making me twitchy, being so close and having to wait to take action, to get inside. Not to mention that who knew what was going on inside of that building - things that were close to what had happened to me, maybe, or things even worse. Who knew what they had accomplished since the last time I had been in the Itex? What terrible things were they doing now?

I repressed a shudder. That wasn't something that I wanted to be thinking about right now. I needed to stay focused, not think about Itex trying to experiment on me.

"I just wish that we could watch Gazzy and Iggy," Nudge continued in a plaintive tone. "I mean, I know they blow things up all the time, but this is just a bit more...exciting, you know? There's anticipation."

"Mmm," Fang said absently, still staring down the alleyway towards the spot that the two pyros had disappeared.

Nudge spared him a withering glance - maybe irritated at his lack of interest in her words - and turned instead to Angel. "You get it, don't you?" she asked my baby.

Angel smiled at Nudge, probably knowing exactly what answer Nudge wanted her to give. "Yeah, I get it," she said. "I kind of want to watch, too. But it's okay, we'll hear it."

"And we'll kind of see it," Nudge mused. A devilish grin that I didn't recognize stole over her face, surprising me. "We get to see all of the chaos."

"Hold up, wait," I interrupted, a sudden fear taking hold of me. "They are setting off these bombs where innocent people won't get hurt, right?"

Fang seemed to come out of whatever reverie he was in and snorted. "Of course they are, Max. They know what they're doing, remember?" He rolled his eyes and turned back towards the alleyway, waiting. I stuck my tongue out at his back. Angel stifled a laugh.

BOOM!

A colossal eruption seemed to shake the very ground beneath us. Shrieks and yells from the street simultaneously began, and from the alleyway we could see people running back and forth. Sheesh. Humans. They weren't even hurt and they were running around like chickens with their heads cut off.

"Well, that was fast," I said out loud.

BOOM!

Another explosion sounded, a little closer than the first one had been. I could hear the sirens starting up already and hoped that Gazzy and Iggy were somewhere that they couldn't be caught by police.

I started paying attention to what was going on outside our little bubble of calm. There were tons of people running past our alleyway, not pausing to glance at the four kids that were just standing there as if nothing was wrong - which, for us, there wasn't. It was almost comical - their faces were like cartoons, with bugging eyes and flailing arms. I would have laughed if it hadn't been so serious.

"One more," Fang muttered, "and then -"

BOOM-BOOM-BA BOOM!

A series of rapid fire explosions rang out. I imagined Gazzy's cackle ringing out through the din of all the sirens and people.

"Alright, let's go," Fang muttered. He turned to the fire escape behind him and climbed up the ladder that led to the main part of the fire escape, hauling himself up step by step. It would have been so much easier to - I don't know - fly up there, but with all of the chaos going on, you never knew when someone would run down this alleyway away from the explosions and spot us, and that we couldn't risk.

One by one, the flock nimbly scaled the fire escape and vaulted over the edge onto the landing, where we climbed all the way to the twentieth floor. Fang stealthily glanced into one of the windows while the rest of us tried to keep relatively out of sight. "It's safe," he breathed. "No one's in this room. Come on." I noticed that he kept his hand close to his gun as he tried the window. Miraculously, it was open.

Nudge grinned. "Too easy."

Fang said nothing, merely dropped inside the building, silent as a shadow. I dropped in after him, landing on the balls of my feet and absorbing most of the landing with my knees. Before I even had a chance to take in my surroundings, I heard the sound of a gun being fired through a silencer and whipped around, expecting to see attackers of some sort, but it was only Fang. He lowered his gun from where he had aimed it at the corner of the ceiling, and I could see the remains of a security camera. Assured that there was no one attempting to attack us, I took in our surroundings.

It looked like we were in some sort of supply room, which explained the lack of human presence. The walls were lined with shelves, which in turn were stacked with boxes upon boxes of stuff. I read the labels on some of them. Lab equipment, security tapes...there was everything in here. It was like an information gold mine.

Then one caught my eye. Files: 1990-1995, it read. I hesitated as Nudge and Angel climbed in the window. If I was right - which I thought I was - I had been born/created around that time, and so had Fang, and Iggy. What if there was something about us in there?

Before I could change my mind, I grabbed a random file from inside the box and stuffed it inside of my jacket.

Fang turned towards the doorway, thankfully missing what I'd just done. "Come on," he whispered. "We need to find a vent and get to the meeting room. It should be on this floor, right, Angel?"

Angel nodded. "Yep. That's what I saw, anyway."

Oh. I was beginning to understand why Fang was willing to take so many 'risks' with this plan. He already knew the whole blueprint of the building - Angel must have seen it in someone's head. It made more sense now.

I could hear another explosion from outside, and I wondered just how long Gazzy and Iggy would be able to keep this up. Just how many bombs had they stored inside of those backpacks, anyway?

Fang lead the way into the hallway, creeping along the side of the wall. He quickly took out the other security camera as soon as he spotted it. There was no one in the hallway - because, as planned, everyone had plastered themselves to the windows, watching the chaos outside. I guessed that Iggy and Gazzy had placed their explosions far enough away so the stuck up whitecoats wouldn't feel too threatened, but wouldn't be able to look away, either.

The hallway seemed too bright for my eyes. The light was harsh, and made a slight buzzing noise that seemed to fill my ears as we inched down the hallway. It seemed like we had gone a mile out in the open - though it was probably really only a few yards - until we reached a large vent in the side of the wall. Fang took out a screwdriver and quickly took the vent cover off of the side of the wall. "I'll go in first," he whispered, so low that I wouldn't have been able to hear him if he hadn't been standing right next to me. "Nudge, you bring up the rear. Make sure to put the vent back in behind you." Nudge nodded, her face serious. Fang crawled into the vent, followed by me, then Angel, and finally Nudge. I heard the chink of the vent closing into place, and my breathing sped up.

Reason number 5973 why I did not like this plan.

Claustrophobia.

Maybe Fang had gotten over his or something - I knew that Nudge and Angel had never had it as bad as Fang and I did - but this was making me go haywire. I hated being enclosed in this tight, dark place. I hated, hated, hated it. My body was breaking out in a cold sweat, and I was becoming dangerously close to hyperventilating. Relax, Max, I tried to tell myself. Deep breaths. You'll be fine. It's for the best. You won't get trapped here, you won't possibly die....

That. Was not. WORKING.

It seemed like hours before I could hear voices through the vent. Fang moved a little farther forward and peered through the vent cover. Since I had been lucky enough to be after him, I was able to crowd close enough to get a look inside the room we were currently 'in'.

It was a large conference room, and a stereotypical one at that - long, rectangular table with swivel chairs, boring decor, you know, the works. At first glance it seemed to be empty, but - I craned my neck - I could just barely make out the picture of several well dressed individuals staring transfixed out of the window.

One of the men harrumphed. "I think," he said pompously in a British accent, "that we should return to business. We have things to continue discussing, after all." I recognized the voice and manner immediately. It was the Head Hunter. I resisted the urge to throw up in my mouth and listened harder.

A dark haired woman that I didn't recognize sighed and turned around. "Yes, I suppose you are right," she said. Her voice had a lilt to it that sounded vaguely Spanish, but it was hard to hear an accent - she spoke very good English. "Shall we?" she gestured to the table.

I saw someone that I recognized to be Anne take a spot at the table across from the vent. The Head Hunter took one directly across from her. An Asian man took a spot at the head of the table while the other scientists seated themselves. This, I was assuming, was the head of the Chinese Itex.

"We were speaking of the Greek project," he said, once everyone had been situated. I had to strain to understand his words. His accent wasn't quite as polished as the Spanish woman's was. "What is to be done with them? They were, after all, the pet project of Marian."

He calls her Marian, I noted. They must have been relatively close to be on a first name basis.

"Well, I say that we continue research and testing," said Anne, and my eyes narrowed. "We're so close to the final stage; it would be a shame to just back down now that we've gotten so close to perfection."

"I agree," said the Spanish woman. "Personally, I would like to see how this last experiment is going to turn out. If we thought that the first one had no flaws...after so many improvements, how perfect will this one be?"

"So are we agreed?" asked the Chinese man, evidently impatient to keep this meeting moving.

The - I counted quickly - eight delegates nodded.

"Good," he said curtly, "then on to the next and last order of business." I felt a flash of disappointment. We must have missed most of the meeting. "This, as you know," he continued, "is the most sensitive topic that we have to tackle." I leaned forward as much as I could, straining to hear the next statement. "Who is going to be the new Head Director of Itex?"

The conference room was silent for a moment. Then everyone started speaking at once.

"I think that-"

"The best candidate would be-"

"I'm perfectly qualified, of course-"

"Ladies and gentleman! Silence, please!" The Chinese Director cried. The room became quiet again. He took a deep breath. "Those who believe they are qualified to become Director of the Itexicon Corporation, please raise your hand."

Eight hands rose in the air. I looked closely at Anne. She wasn't looking at the Chinese Director - she had a slightly vacant look on her face, and seemed to be debating something internally.

Huh. Wonder what that was all about.

"Should we wait for the other delegates to take a vote as well?" The Head Hunter asked.

"No," answered another man immediately. "The people sitting here represent the eight largest Itex branches in the world. The others are insignificant. If they don't like who we choose here, then they will just have to deal with it."

Ouch. Cold.

"Alright, here is what we will do," The Chinese Director said. "We'll put it to a vote - but you cannot vote for yourself, understood? The person with the most votes, obviously, will be the new Director. There will be a period of three days in which protests - if any - can be made, and at the end of the three days, if there are no valid protests made, that man or woman will be the new Director."

Another explosion sounded outside, and I nearly jumped. It had been so long without an explosion that I had thought they'd stopped.

The scientists looked around nervously. "Perhaps," said a man - ter Borcht, I recognized with a jolt - "ve should hurry the voting up a bit."

"Yes, very well," the Chinese man said. "Those who vote for Rodriguez?"

No hands were raised. The Spanish woman looked furious.

"Those for ter Borcht?" One hand - the Head Hunter.

"Those for me - Cao?" Two hands went up. Anne's was one of them.

"Those for Walker?" Three hands.

"Those for Pruitt?" One hand.

"Well," the Chinese man said, "There's really no point in continuing, is there? Seven votes have been cast. There are no other candidates that could possibly have the majority. Therefore-" it looked like it was causing him great pain to say the words. ter Borcht looked like he was about ready to strangle someone, his face was so red.

"Anne Walker?" She looked up at the Chinese Director. Fang and I looked at each other, our faces both identical mirrors of shock.

"You are the new Director of Itex."